More and Murkier Numbers

Via Talking Points Memo: NBC News seems to have figured out how to add up the Clinton-Obama popular vote in a way that apparently includes people voting in caucuses as well as in primaries. I’m in deep waters here, but the NBC figures appear to show that the caucuses do indeed erase Clinton’s pop-vote lead in the primaries alone (which I had calculated to be 81,367, or about four-tenths of a point). The NBC math wizards have Obama leading by a hair under 700,000 votes out of 18,774,208 cast for all Democratic candidates in the contested states, i.e., not counting Florida and Michigan.

That seems weird to me. Somebody has to have made a mistake somewhere—probably me. Anyway, here are the NBC figures, as tabulated by T.P.M.:

States Awarding Delegates

Obama: 9,373,334 (50%)

Clinton: 8,674,779 (46%)

Others: 726,095 (4%)

With Florida

Obama: 9,942,375 (49%)

Clinton: 9,531,987(46%)

Others: 984,236 (4%)

With Florida and Michigan

Obama: 9,942,375 (47%)

Clinton: 9,860,138 (47%)

Others: 1,249,922 (6%)

I don’t know NBC’s methodology. At some point I’ll try to sort out the discrepancies. Once the results are in for the very last of the primaries—Puerto Rico’s, on June 7th—it will be important to nail down these numbers with as much precision as possible, because they will be meaningful in judging the small-d democratic legitimacy of the candidates.

Hendrik Hertzberg is a senior editor and staff writer at The New Yorker. He regularly blogs about politics.